My sister lives in Helena, Montana (HLN) the capital of the Big Sky State. The population of Helena is less than 30,000 people.
The airport there is really tiny. Long-term parking is $15 per week; you leave your payment in the drop box when you exit.
There are only about six flights per day out of HLN. The flights are not only scarce, they are also expensive.
My sister wanted to come east for our Mom’s 90th birthday and our Uncle’s 95th, so I offered to buy her a ticket.
Well there was no way she was going to let me buy a ticket.
But she would allow me to pay for her ticket with frequent flyer miles — miles that I had accrued largely through credit card sign-up bonuses.
That’s the reason I collect miles and points!
Extreme Travel Hacking for the Sandwich Generation
When I attended my first frequent flyer meet-up a few years ago, one of the old timers informed me that frequent flier miles should not be used for domestic flights. Excuse me?
I was told that I could get a much higher value if I redeemed points for international first class travel.
Over the past several years, I have redeemed hundreds of thousands of miles for flights — and all of these flights were economy class domestic travel.
Most people think of family travel as traveling with children. Our family travel is traveling to see family, or flying family members in for a visit. To me, that is maximizing the value of frequent flyer miles!
I don’t care whether I have to spend 25,000 miles or 50,000 miles for a roundtrip ticket. The “point” is that we use the miles to get where we need to go.
As a Club Carlson credit card holder, I was eligible for the stay one night, get one night free deal on award stays, so the cost of my two-night stay was 50,000 Club Carlson points.
I enjoyed the hotel so much that I am looking for ways to replenish my points account!
Stacking Club Carlson Promos
Club Carlson is always running a bunch of promo offers and special rates. Each offer applies to a select list of hotels and you need to read the fine print to make sure you qualify. Sometimes, it is possible to stack promos, so that your earn bonus points on several offers with the same reservation.
The tricky thing is that the special offer may not always be the best rate.
Club Carlson is currently running a 3,000 point bonus if you book your stay using their mobile app through November 16, 2014. This is good for up to three bookings, for a total of potentially 9,000 points.
Club Carlson is also running a promo for7,500 American Advantage points if you book two stays at participating Radisson Hotels.
Try using the promo code BIZTIME3 for Sunday through Thursday nights at participating hotels now through November 30, 2014.
With this promo code, you can earn 40 Bonus Gold Points® per dollar spent on room nights. These bonus Points are in addition to the standard 20 Gold Points per dollar spent on eligible stays, for a total of 6o Gold Points per dollar.
There is a long list of properties in the U.S. and in some Latin American Countries that are participating in this promotion.
Stay Two Nights, Get Third Night Free on Weekends
Club Carlson’s Weekend Extender Promo — Stay two nights, get third night free
If you are traveling on the weekend, be sure to check if your hotel may be eligible for Club Carlson’s Weekend Extender promotion. You pay for two nights but you stay for three!
Book your three day weekend using the promo code WEEKENDX for extended weekend stays at participating hotels now through November 30, 2014. The stay must include a combination of either a Friday and Saturday night, or a Saturday and Sunday night.
When I logged into my Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) account today I noticed a special offer:
upgrade to Gold Preferred Guest® status after two eligible stays at SPG hotels by October 15, 2014.
The promotion is offered to “select” Starwood Preferred Guest members who register by August 31, 2014.
The Gold Preferred Guest status will be good through February 2016.
Certain exclusions apply: bookings made through third parties such as online travel agencies do not count, nor do award night booked with Starwood points or Cash & Points.
Normally, ten separate stays or 25 nights in a year are required to earn Gold status, so this is indeed a fast track.
Is SPG Gold Status Worth It?
Here are the benefits of Gold Status:
Three Starpoints for every dollar spent – a 50% bonus over basic membership.
4 p.m. late checkout.
An “enhanced” room at check-in, when available.
Your choice of a welcome gift: bonus Starpoints, complimentary in-room Internet access, or a free drink.
So far as I am able to gather, the “enhanced” room may be a room on a higher floor, but is not a suite.
The welcome gift is a choice of:
250 Starwood points (125 points at Aloft, Four Points and Element);
high speed internet access for the entire stay; or
a complimentary beverage at the restaurant/bar, maximum value of $15.
No Status, No Problem
I have a couple of hotel stays coming up but I am not going to go out of my way to stay at a Starwood hotel just to earn gold status. I can almost always get a cheaper rate going through Priceline or Hotwire, and I am unlikely to have enough paid stays at Starwood hotels in the next 18 months to make this deal worthwhile for me.
What about you? Is this a deal, or no deal?
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It was a perfectly nice hotel — exactly what you’d expect from a Sheraton. It offered nothing particularly noteworthy, except for the complimentary shuttle service which was outstanding.
I booked a “Cash & Points” stay. As a Category 3 Starwood hotel, the fixed Cash & Points rate is 3,500 points per night plus $55 (plus tax).
This four night holiday put a big dent in my SPG points balance.
Cash & Points stays do not earn Starwood (SPG) points. To replenish my account, I took advantage of a couple of promotions to earn a total of 2,500 points:
Make a Green Choice — 1,500 points
Local restaurant promo — 500 points
2x points using Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card to pay the cash portion of the bill — 500 points
Make a Green Choice
Get 500 SPG points per night
SPG’s environmental initiative — “Make a Green Choice” — aims to conserve water and energy. The Ann Arbor Sheraton offers guests the option to decline daily housekeeping service in exchange for 500 Starpoints per night (except day of departure). Since I was not sharing the room, I opted for the Starpoints.
Welcome SPG Members!
The hotel website indicated another welcome offer was in effect. You could earn 500 Starpoints by showing your SPG card and spending $25 in food and drink in the hotel restaurant.
* * *
Starpoints are the most difficult currency to accumulate. There are no bonus points categories, save for 2x points at Starwood hotels. Unlike most other points programs, there is not a shopping portal to earn extra points for shopping online.
I was pleased to get 2,500 points back for this stay — to go toward my next trip!
As Kermit once said, it’s not easy being green.
Do you participate in hotels’ environmental programs? Should hotels incentivize these programs by offering points in their loyalty programs?
Have you seen the movie Frozen? Well, that’s exactly what happened to my IHG Rewards Club account.
A couple of weeks ago, I was researching hotels for an upcoming summer trip.
I noticed that I could not pull up the IHG web page on my computer. A notice popped up that the site was down. When this continued for more than a week, I finally realized that something was wrong.
IHG Froze My Rewards Club Account
I called IHG and was told that the website was not down.
However, my access to the website had been terminated for — dare I say — fraudulent activity.
Don’t Believe Everything You Read on the Internet, Duh
IHG Rewards Club (formerly known as Priority Club) allows you to stack more than one promo code on to a reservation.
These promo codes allow you to earn extra points for your stay, sometimes a lot of extra points!
I had found a list of IHG promo codes on a blog somewhere and had attempted to enter as many as possible on to my account. About half the codes I tried were accepted.
Don’t Enroll in Random IHG Promos
The customer service rep told me that my IHG Rewards Club account had been frozen because I had applied promo codes to my account that I found on the internet.
She warned me to use only promo codes that had been emailed specifically to me.
Using random promo codes would result in IHG confiscating all my points and permanently terminating my account.
Some of the travel hacks you read about on the internet can backfire. This hack had apparently been working for quite some time. About the time I discovered it, in June 2014, IHG had pulled the plug. Consider yourself warned.
Have any travel hacks backfired on you? Please share in the comments.
This hotel has reasonable weekend prices, so why not plan to stay the weekend and take in the sites. If you’d rather not go downtown, the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum’sUdvar-Hazy Center is just down the street.
Family Travel for Real LifeWill Cover These Topics
Scheduling around a school calendar
Saving money without relying only on credit card bonuses
Condo rentals and hotel rooms for families traveling overseas
Booking award tickets when you need more than two
Destination planning for families
Camp Mom: traveling with your kids for less than the cost of camp
How to save on theme park vacations
Several top notch speakers are already lined up, with more to be added:
Carolina Travel Girl: Where to stay when a hotel room won’t cut it
Jason Steele: Booking award travel for families
Shawn of Miles to Memories: Booking loo00ong summer vacations
Follow this hashtag on Twitter to stay in the loop: #FT4RL
Registration will begin at 9 a.m. and sessions will run from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (possibly 5:00). Lunch and an afternoon snack break are included in admission.
Sign up early because the first 25 registrants can get tickets for $49. After that, tickets are going for $59. Here’s the link to register!
I know what you’re thinking. Why would you go to Japan to stay in an American chain hotel?
Japan has capsule hotels, love hotels, and traditional Ryokan inns.
So why in the world would you want to stay in an American chain hotel?
Two words: free nights.
I’ve read so many reviews from points and miles bloggers who have stayed at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Tokyo with “two free nights” they got from their Chase Hyatt credit card. That place seems a bit over-blogged.
What about the Imperial Hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright? Now that’s a place I would like to stay (though I never would, because I am too cheap.)
One reason you might choose a franchised hotel might be to economize. If you could earn free nights by accumulating points, that could cut the costs of your vacation. I’ve written before about how we are planning a rail-based trip, and that hotels near train stations would be ideal.
My guidebook, Japan by Rail, mentions a number of Choice Hotels that are directly across from railroad stations, and many others that are a ten minute walk away.
With all the hype about the Park Hyatt Tokyo, I thought I would take a look at other chain hotels that you can stay at for points, and how many properties they each have in Japan. The search tool at AwardMapper.com was tremendously helpful in this regard.
Choice Hotels Has More Hotels in Japan Than Any Other U.S. Chain
Are you surprised? Choice Hotels has four times as many properties in Japan as Hyatt does., and three times as many as the nearest competitors, Starwood and Best Western. Apparently, Choice has a ton of properties in Scandinavia, too.
To be sure the Comfort Inn is no Park Hyatt. The Japanese Comfort Inns all look like 2 star hotels that cater to business people. The rooms are quite small; but hey, this is Japan, you’d expect small rooms. The prices are reasonable, as are the points redemptions. For 38 of the 47 hotels, you need 8,000 points for a free night. What makes these hotels especially convenient is the free breakfast, free wifi, guest laundry, and small business center.
Get 32,000 Bonus Points with the Choice Privileges Visa Card Equal 4 Free Nights
Choice Privileges Credit Card Bonus Points
How can you get 8,000 points?
The easiest way is by opening The Choice Privileges® Visa® Card. This is a no annual fee travel rewards credit card that pays 8,000 points after your first purchase, and 24,000 points after a one night stay at a Choice Privileges location. That’s enough for four free nights at most Comfort Inns in Japan.
Here’s the thing: you can burn Choice Privileges points at hotels in Japan, but you will not earn points for your paid stays.
This is the points earning structure for The Choice Privileges® Visa® Card:
15 per eligible $1 spent at over 4,200 Choice Privileges locations
5 points per eligible $1 on additional Choice Privileges points or Choice Hotels gift card purchases
2 points per eligible $1 spent on everyday purchases
Cardmembers will get Automatic Elite Gold Status, which offers:
Ability to book free nights 50 days in advance instead of 30 days
Every time you earn points for eligible stays, Choice Privileges gives you a 10% point bonus
To be sure there are more generous offers available, but those are usually for cards with a high annual fee.
The Choice Privileges® Visa® Card has no annual fee, not in the first year, nor in any subsequent year. A card with no annual fee is one that you can hold for years and years, which will improve one of the important components of your credit score, the average age of your accounts.
What are the Limitations?
Comfort Inn Japan
There are some limitations. Your first paid stay must be in a U.S. participating hotel.
You will earn only 10 points per dollar at the lower end Choice properties: MainStay Suites®, Suburban Extended Stay®, Econo Lodge® and Rodeway Inn®.
“Eligible stays”exclude discounted rates or stays booked through third parties.
You do not earn points for stays in these countries: Brazil, China, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, India, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden and including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Papua New Guinea and Fiji.
My favorite feature of the Barclaycard Arrival™ World MasterCard®is free access to my credit score every quarter.
If you are opening a lot of credit cards to earn points and miles, you definitely need to stay on top of the impact on your credit score.
Barclay’s offers free access to the real FICO score from Transunion. You are also eligible for a free FICO credit score from Barclay’s if you have the The US Airways Premier World MasterCard®.
This benefit has been available for the past six months, so I have been able to watch my score gradually increase over time as I took a break from opening new credit cards.
At first blush, you might think that your credit score would go down from opening a lot of rewards credit cards. It does. Your score temporarily drops a few points for each credit inquiry on your credit report.
Components of FICO Credit Score
However, if you pay your bills on time and in full every month (and you should only be in this game if you do) your score could actually increase over time.
That is because an important component of your credit score is credit utilization, or how much of the total credit line is being used.
If your total credit line increases as you open more cards, and the percent of credit utilized decreases, that can have a positive impact on your credit score.
Free FICO Score from Barclaycard Arrival: My Credit Score Increased Over Time
Free FICO Credit Score from Barclaycard Arrival
Six months ago, when I first gained access to my official FICO score via Barclaycard, my score was roughly 779. That is in the excellent range. (Sorry, I don’t have a screen shot.)
I wanted to give my credit score a rest, so I stopped applying for new credit cards for a while. As credit inquiries gradually dropped off my report, my score rose to 810 in January 2014.
Three months later, in April 2014, my credit score rose again to 825 out of a maximum score of 850. This is amazing considering the large number of credit cards I have applied for over the last several years.
Stay Alert for Offers for 50K Frequent Flyer Miles
My “strategy” when I first got into this game was to look for rewards cards that offered 50K bonus miles for new applicants. First, I applied for the Southwest credit card for 50K, and then the Southwest business card for 50K. Next I applied for the Delta card for 50K, and then the Delta business card for another 50K. After that I applied for the United card for 50K, and the United business card for 50K.
I am self-employed so I am eligible for small business credit cards because of my environmental consulting business.
I got a lot of free flights from these airlines!
Actually though, I think a consolidation strategy makes more sense for a lot of people, especially leisure, budget travelers.
Nevertheless, I didn’t follow my own advice, and last summer I applied for the American Airlines AAdvantage credit card for 50K bonus miles.
With my credit score now well above 800, I was now ready to consider applying for additional travel rewards credit cards. So this weekend, I applied for the American Airlines AAdvantage business credit card for 50K bonus points. This card has a $3,000 spend requirement in the first three months to get the bonus, and it has a $95 annual fee that is waived the first year. There are other offers out there for “Executive” versions of the AA card, but they had higher spend requirements than I was comfortable with.
Diversification is a good idea in the stock market, but it is a bad idea as far as frequent flyer programs go.
In order to maximize award travel, you need to concentrate your earning strategy on one or maybe two frequent flyer programs.
Miles and points have no value if they are not used. Zilch. So there is little value in gathering a few miles here and a few miles there unless you will have enough to redeem for an award ticket or hotel room.
Miles and Points Programs Are Loyalty Programs
Frequent flyer and hotel programs are loyalty programs so it stands to reason that they reward loyalty. If you spread your spending around, the less likely you are to accrue enough points in any one program to redeem an award, or to benefit from elite status. Now I am not one for elite status, but if you are doing a lot of traveling, and can arrange your travel to concentrate on a particular airline or hotel chain, you may accelerate your points earning as you move up the loyalty program ladder.
35,000 Miles Won’t Get Me Where I Want to Go
Let me give an example. Last year, I opened a The US Airways Premier World MasterCard® for a bonus of 35K miles. I thought this was a great deal because the miles were awarded after making my first purchase — there was no minimum spend requirement. Free miles, I thought. (The offer now is for $30K miles after your first purchase, with an annual fee of $89.)
US Airways fit into our family’s travel plans, because they had a lot of flights from Washington National (DCA) to Hartford (BDL). The US Airways card came with two $99 companion passes, so I thought it would be a good way for our family of three to save on travel expenses. Furthermore, it allowed award redemptions for 5,000 fewer points. (Economy awards on US Airways normally cost 25K miles, but if you have The US Airways Premier World MasterCard®, they cost only 20K miles.)
When it came time to book our travel, there was ready award availability at the “economy” level for flights from DC to Hartford.
United Airlines is offering a 25 percent discount on award tickets to Japan, just in time for the cherry blossom season and festivals.
This is the bargain of the century!
Round-trip coach tickets for nonstop flights from Washington, DC to Tokyo price out at over $2,000 in April 2014, but can be had 52,500 miles with this sale!
The regular “saver” award price is 70,000 Mileage Plus miles.
What’s more, there is plenty of availability for Dulles International Airport (IAD) in both directions!
Saver Award Space from IAD to NRTSaver Award Space From NRT to IAD
I did not check availability for other departure cities — but the offer is good for travel from the mainland U.S. and Canada.
The offer is valid for coach tickets purchased by April 17, 2014, for travel between April 1 and April 30, 2014.
A sample itinerary I checked priced out to 52,500 miles plus $120.50 in taxes for a roundtrip ticket, or $2,480 in cash.
That means that you could get enough miles for a roundtrip ticket to Japan just by opening a single credit card and meeting the minimum spend requirement. That’s extraordinary if you think about it!
